iew of Italian religion and morality, however fragmentary it
may be, as this indeed is, one feature which distinguishes the acute
sensibility of the race ought not to be omitted. Deficient in profound
intellectual convictions, incapable of a fixed and radical determination
towards national holiness, devoid of those passionate and imaginative
intuitions into the mysteries of the world which generate religions and
philosophies, the Italians were at the same time keenly susceptible to
the beauty of the Christian faith revealed to them by inspired orators.
What we call Revivalism was an institution in Italy, which the Church
was too wise to discountenance or to suppress, although the preachers of
repentance were often insubordinate and sometimes even hostile to the
Papal system. The names of Arnold of Brescia, San Bernardino of Siena,
John of Vicenza, Jacopo Bussolari, Alberto da Lecce, Giovanni
Capistrano, Jacopo della Marca, Girolamo Savonarola, bring before the
memory of those who are acquainted with Italian history innumerable
pictures of multitudes commoved to tears, of tyrannies destroyed and
constitutions founded by tumultuous assemblies, of hostile parties and
vindictive nobles locked in fraternal embraces, of cities clothed in
sackcloth for their sins, of exhortations to peace echoing by the banks
of rivers swollen with blood, of squares and hillsides resonant with
sobs, of Lenten nights illuminated with bonfires of Vanity.[1] In the
midst of these melodramatic scenes towers the single form of a Dominican
or Franciscan friar: while one voice thundering woe or pleading peace
dominates the crowd. Of the temporary effects produced by these
preachers there can be no question. The changes which they wrought in
states and cities prove that the enthusiasm they aroused was more than
merely hysterical. Savonarola, the greatest of his class, founded not
only a transient commonwealth in Florence, but also a political party of
importance, and left his lasting impress on the greatest soul of the
sixteenth century in Italy--Michael Angelo Buonarroti. There was a real
religious vigor in the people corresponding to the preacher's zeal. But
the action of this earnest mood was intermittent and spasmodic. It
coexisted with too much superstition and with passions too vehemently
restless to form a settled tone of character. In this respect the
Italian nation stands not extravagantly pictured in the life of Cellini,
whose violence, self-i